May 15, 2013

Driven to distraction

By Connie Matthiessen, Associate Editor

My kids claim they can multitask. No problem, they say, they can successfully
do their homework while listening to music, replying to texts, eating a snack, checking
Instagram, cuddling the cat, and
squabbling with a sibling.

Murphy Paul cites research by Larry Rosen, a professor
of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, that measured how
much multitasking students engage in, including texting, talking on the phone, watching
TV, surfing the web, going on Facebook, and instant messaging.

For the study,
the student-subjects, who were in middle school, high school and college, were instructed
to engage in serious work, and knew they were being observed. Rosen was
surprised by his findings. “We were amazed at how frequently [students]
multitasked, even though they knew someone was watching,” Rosen says. “It
really seems that they could not go for 15 minutes without engaging their
devices.” He confesses: “It was kind of scary, actually.”

Cultural ADD

Kids from grade school through college are engaging in a staggering
amount of technology-fueled multitasking, according to researchers like Rosen. One-third
of kids from ages 8 through 18 said they engaged in other activities — like watching
TV, listening to music, and texting — while they did their homework, according
to a 2010
Kaiser report. In another
study, 80 percent of college students surveyed said they texted during
class time. Meanwhile, there is a growing body of evidence that kids who multitask while doing school
work understand less, remember less, and have trouble transferring what they
learn to a new context. Of course, kids aren't the only multitaskers — plenty of adults are just as distracted at work and at home.

Besides diminishing our effectiveness in school and on the job, what
is this relentless storm of personal messages, random facts, frenetic
stimulation, and constant interruption doing to our brains — and to our
culture as a whole? Nicolas Carr, author of The Shallows, suggests it's causing fundamental changes we're just beginning to understand. Writing inHarper's Magazine, teacher Garret Keizer cites the eye-popping rise in rates of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and points out:
“Hearing someone say, ‘I’ve got ADD’ in a culture of such vast distractedness
is a bit like having a fellow passenger on an ocean liner tell you that she
feels afloat. Who doesn’t?”

Don’t eat that marshmallow!

Since
technology is here to stay, kids need to learn to live with distractions – and,
more importantly, to live without
them when they have serious, sustained work to do. The ability to resist the lure
of technological distractions in school
and on the job is likely to play an
increasingly important role in determining an individual’s success. Murphy Paul draws a parallel with the famous marshmallow
test. In that experiment, children were shown a marshmallow and told that
if they put off eating it, they’d get a second marshmallow. Researchers found that the children who were
able to wait and not immediately gobble up their treat were more
successful at school, and years later, on the job and in relationships.

So what can you do build up your kids’ marshmallow muscles
when technology beckons? Here’s Murphy Paul’s advice: “Stop fretting about how
much they’re on Facebook. Don’t harass them about how much they play video
games. The digital native boosters are right that this is the social and
emotional world in which young people live. Just make sure when they’re doing
schoolwork, the cell phones are silent, the video screens are dark, and that
every last window is closed but one.”

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Driven to distraction

By Connie Matthiessen, Associate Editor

My kids claim they can multitask. No problem, they say, they can successfully
do their homework while listening to music, replying to texts, eating a snack, checking
Instagram, cuddling the cat, and
squabbling with a sibling.

Murphy Paul cites research by Larry Rosen, a professor
of psychology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, that measured how
much multitasking students engage in, including texting, talking on the phone, watching
TV, surfing the web, going on Facebook, and instant messaging.

For the study,
the student-subjects, who were in middle school, high school and college, were instructed
to engage in serious work, and knew they were being observed. Rosen was
surprised by his findings. “We were amazed at how frequently [students]
multitasked, even though they knew someone was watching,” Rosen says. “It
really seems that they could not go for 15 minutes without engaging their
devices.” He confesses: “It was kind of scary, actually.”

Cultural ADD

Kids from grade school through college are engaging in a staggering
amount of technology-fueled multitasking, according to researchers like Rosen. One-third
of kids from ages 8 through 18 said they engaged in other activities — like watching
TV, listening to music, and texting — while they did their homework, according
to a 2010
Kaiser report. In another
study, 80 percent of college students surveyed said they texted during
class time. Meanwhile, there is a growing body of evidence that kids who multitask while doing school
work understand less, remember less, and have trouble transferring what they
learn to a new context. Of course, kids aren't the only multitaskers — plenty of adults are just as distracted at work and at home.

Besides diminishing our effectiveness in school and on the job, what
is this relentless storm of personal messages, random facts, frenetic
stimulation, and constant interruption doing to our brains — and to our
culture as a whole? Nicolas Carr, author of The Shallows, suggests it's causing fundamental changes we're just beginning to understand. Writing inHarper's Magazine, teacher Garret Keizer cites the eye-popping rise in rates of Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and points out:
“Hearing someone say, ‘I’ve got ADD’ in a culture of such vast distractedness
is a bit like having a fellow passenger on an ocean liner tell you that she
feels afloat. Who doesn’t?”

Don’t eat that marshmallow!

Since
technology is here to stay, kids need to learn to live with distractions – and,
more importantly, to live without
them when they have serious, sustained work to do. The ability to resist the lure
of technological distractions in school
and on the job is likely to play an
increasingly important role in determining an individual’s success. Murphy Paul draws a parallel with the famous marshmallow
test. In that experiment, children were shown a marshmallow and told that
if they put off eating it, they’d get a second marshmallow. Researchers found that the children who were
able to wait and not immediately gobble up their treat were more
successful at school, and years later, on the job and in relationships.

So what can you do build up your kids’ marshmallow muscles
when technology beckons? Here’s Murphy Paul’s advice: “Stop fretting about how
much they’re on Facebook. Don’t harass them about how much they play video
games. The digital native boosters are right that this is the social and
emotional world in which young people live. Just make sure when they’re doing
schoolwork, the cell phones are silent, the video screens are dark, and that
every last window is closed but one.”